Eastside Locks Student Acomodation for Birmingham City University
Eastside Locks marked our fourth project for student accommodation developer Alumno, this time tasked with designing the student common rooms and communal areas, including the main reception and lobby. The brief was to genuinely understand what art and design students want from their accommodation, rather than assume it, and to design spaces that reflected their actual preferences.
The Challenge
Our Response
We began by running a series of student stakeholder sessions with Alumno to establish what the students wanted from their communal spaces. That engagement deepened further through a live co-lab project with BA Architecture students at Birmingham School of Architecture, who produced research and concept ideas for the common rooms and were directly involved in selecting furniture, including a joint visit to showrooms in Clerkenwell. Throughout, we worked closely with architects Glenn Howells Architects and fit-out contractor FF&E to bring the scheme to life.
The Outcome
The completed development sits at the heart of BCU's City Centre Campus, just a short walk from lectures. It has gone on to play a key role in kick-starting Birmingham's Eastside Regeneration scheme, giving students genuinely on-campus living alongside the common rooms and communal spaces shaped directly by their own feedback
